August 6, 2008
I remember when this little balcony didn’t used to be fenced off.
It’s part of the Asbury Park Casino/ Boiler House/ Carousel complex, on the Ocean Grove side.
August 5, 2008
It’s a little long to have come from an Eastern Goldfinch; I’m not quite sure what sort of bird this feather comes from.
August 4, 2008
Three days a week, I drive south on the Garden State Parkway and marvel at a rickety footbridge that passes overhead. At some point, it occurred to me, “OH! That must be the Manasquan Bike Path!” [It’s formally known as the Edgar Felix Bike Path.) And, since it seemed to be on my way to and from Ocean County College, and since I like to try new places to in-line skate, I decided I’d stop and check it out at some point.
I read that the eastern portion (the beginning in Manasquan) was rough (not fun if you’re on skates with unforgiving hard rubber wheels), so I began at the western portion (the ending in Allaire Village’s parking lot).
At first, it was pretty enjoyable. There was some debris in the trail, a few annoying road crossings, nothing major. And then I arrived at the part I’d been looking forward to: the bridges over the Garden State Parkway!
Eagerly, I rolled one foot onto the bridge.
And almost fell over.
The wooden planks were UNEVEN, UNSTABLE, and had GIANT GAPS between some of them: my wheels kept getting caught!
(The video below is poorly shot and may make you dizzy. Watch at your own risk. If it doesn’t work, the video at OTDP should work.)
If you watch that video, the “thunk th-thunk” sound is one of the loose planks making racket as I tap it with my foot. Timewise, because my one-handed video skills suck, you can see the boards move around 0:07. NOTE THE TRAFFIC zooming below (at 65mph in a 55 zone. They just changed the speed limit from 65 to 55 within this past year, and drivers haven’t embraced the change yet.).
After it became very clear that skating wasn’t working, I managed to make my way across the bridge by grabbing a railing (see that thing in the top picture that’s hanging in pieces? that.) and pulling myself across the bridge, hand over hand, slowly and very unsurely.
I repeated this procedure for the second bridge. (Two bridges for two directions of parkway traffic… and one median between them.)
On the way back, I actually took off my skates and walked across both bridges in my sock feet. I have never been desperate enough to do that before.
I didn’t manage to do the whole trail. Shortly after a really obnoxious road crossing…
(I looked at this and said, “You’ve got to be KIDDING me”), the trail becomes so bumpy and gravel-like that skating without falling over becomes impossible. I turned around and headed back.
This is a bike path. It wasn’t set up with Rollerbladers in mind.
P.S. I’ve updated my original in-line skating post with this trail.
August 3, 2008
This, I believe, is a meadow vetchling. But why it only has two blossoms, one of which is a sickly orange, is beyond me.
August 2, 2008
I don’t know what that thing it, but it’s a big and easily identifiable building on Atlantic Highlands.
I went to Coney Island in March. When I walked to the end of the pier, I squinted my eyes and said, “Hey!!! That’s the Highlands!!!”
“How can you tell?” asked the friend I was with.
“See how the land is all flat there except for that building sticking up in the middle?”
“So you can identify New Jersey by that giant blemish, boil, blight on the landscape?”
“Yeah! Isn’t that awesome?!”
Also seen in photos taken from Coney Island: the Twin Lights (above)…
…and Sandy Hook lighthouse (above)!
For as often as I’ve seen New York City from Sandy Hook, it was really cool to do it in reverse.
(The originals of these photos were taken at absolute full 10x zoom, full resolution. And I still had to crop those last two photos to ~420 pixels wide.)
August 1, 2008
What’s with all the manholes?!
Back in January 2007, I posted a photo of an Ocean Township gutter. Someone said, “You can learn a lot about a community from its manhole covers.” Fine. I posted some manhole covers. Someone else suggested that I make a typology out of it. I was compelled.
And THAT is how all this madness started. (They’re all from Monmouth County, by the way.)
The manholes are for you to EXPLORE. C’mon. There’s almost 50 photos here. Do you know where they were all taken? Did I REPEAT any patterns? Clicky clicky! Find out!
I’m posting this in honor of the City Daily Photo “metal” theme. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants!
July 31, 2008
When we go to the Monmouth County Fair, of particular interest to my family is the antique tractor tent. My grandfather, born and raised in Kansas, possessed two International Harvesters, which he used to mow his fairly substantial lawn until he was 90 years old (when someone finally succeeded in convincing him that mowing the lawn in 95 degree heat was a poor idea at his age). When my midwestern uncle had to spend a few years in New Jersey, he lavished his attentions on a small yellow tractor (a Cub Lo-Boy–again, an International Harvester). And when all these tractors needed to find a new home, my cousin began using them for his landscaping business.
So it’s kinda fun to go look through the tent and decide which tractors on display are most similar to the tractors that my family knows and loves.
This concludes our five-day retrospect of the five-day fair. But TOMORROW there is something VERY AWESOME planned for this photoblog, so be sure to tune in!
July 30, 2008
I know I already showed you the midway by night, but since I went to all the trouble of hauling my tripod out to the Monmouth County Fair, I thought I might show you something else. 
So here we have the Zipper.
